


Her Name Was April

by ElvenSorceress



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Implied Character Death, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-20
Updated: 2006-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvenSorceress/pseuds/ElvenSorceress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of April.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Name Was April

There was a girl at my high school who committed suicide. I didn’t know her, but I heard about it. All anyone could talk about was how selfish and tragic it all was. I remember thinking, how could life be so bad that you’d want to end it?

Of course, my life was far from perfect. 

My mom died giving birth to me and I wish I could miss her, but I never knew her. My older sister, Autumn was devastated and sometimes, I think she hated me for killing our mother. 

I did have a step-mom and while she didn’t exactly pull a Cinderella on me, I was always very aware that I wasn’t hers. She could never love me like she loved Michael, my little brother. 

He was always my favorite. We would band together against our too-perfect sister and put snakes in her room and accidentally spill grape juice on her new dresses. Then our parents would yell at us and ask, “Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

When I was fourteen, Michael got sick. I stayed with him in the hospital as long as they would let me. I sang to him and read him books because he loved the sound of my voice. He told me when we grew up, we’d move to the city and I’d be a singer and he’d be a painter and we’d live for peace and love and flowers, just like my mom did. He died in his sleep on Christmas Eve. 

That New Years, my sister announced that she was going to med school to be a doctor to make sure no other young boy died of heart failure. It was then I knew that I loved her. 

Autumn tried after that to pay more attention to me, but she couldn’t replace him. 

My school friends took me out and got me drunk one night. I loved not having to worry anymore. Not having to care. Not having to hurt because I missed him so much. 

I met Anthony when I was fifteen and he showed me more ways to ease the pain. I lost my virginity to him while he was high and later he didn’t even remember it. He felt bad about it, though and let me have a hit. I didn’t know which I loved more: Anthony or heroin. 

Autumn started to worry about me when I didn’t come home. Or when I did and was sweating and blissfully immune. Dad only cared that I was distracting my sister when she should be studying. But then Jason came and took me away forever. 

We ran off to the city together and I was so happy because I knew Michael would have been happy. Jason, however, was angry that all I thought about was my brother and he left me to fend for myself. Since there was no way that I was going back home, so began the long string of boyfriends I could mooch off of. 

Jeremy was by far my favorite. He’d shoot me full of that wonderful drug and fuck me as hard and as long as he could. It was sad that I never remembered him leaving. I woke up one morning and he was gone without any sign that he’d ever been there. 

I didn’t care anymore the night I met him.

I melted the moment I heard his voice. I could have spent the entire night and far beyond that just watching him. His eyes sparkled when he sang and his fingers curled delicately over the frets on his guitar. Every time he moved with his music, his muscles rippled and his face contorted with such ecstasy and it was nearly obscene to watch him. His voice and his eyes got me the most. The way he could make even the softest, sweetest ballad into a rock number with his rough, raspy voice. And the deep green eyes that held so much life and passion. 

I think I nearly came when he noticed me watching him and grinned almost shyly. We spent the whole night together, just talking. In fact, we spent the whole week together. He played me all the songs he’d written and all the ones he loved. And then he sang me hippie songs, like ones from Hair and I fell so hard for him when he crooned out notes far higher than most men can even squeak that we had sex on the stage at one of his clubs –and were later banned for life from it. 

Then he brought me home to meet his family. Not his parents, he said, his family. They were the most wonderful people and I had never felt so much love for anyone since Michael. 

I wish it could have ended happily ever after with them. I wished it so hard I hurt. Somehow, I always knew I’d lose it, just like everything else I’d loved. It was my fault and I knew it. 

I never shot up in front of Roger. Not at first. 

He had never done anything besides smoke the occasional joint, but one night, he caught me with a needle in my arm. I’m sure he knew before about what I did, but that night he watched me. And was completely fascinated. 

I offered him my syringe. 

He said he didn’t know how. I did it for him. I injected much more than heroin into his blood, even though I didn’t know it then. He loved it as much as I did my first time. 

For a while, it was all we did together. Months went by with nothing but us and a syringe. I should have known then how bad it was for him. He didn’t touch his guitar for weeks and I knew that he was in even deeper than I was.

Benny was the first to go. He got bored easily and left Bohemia and our family for some rich uptown chick. 

Maureen didn’t leave, but I could tell she wasn’t happy. I got up one night, elated and post-orgasmic and found her in the kitchen crying. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know why, but I wiped away her tears and kissed her full on the mouth. She didn’t act very surprised, but looked at me as if she’d never seen me before. Later that week, when we took our boys to the Cat Scratch, she disappeared with one of the dancers. Mark was too busy filming to notice. 

After that, I got sick. It was only a cold sweat, shiver sort of thing and I figured it was because I hadn’t had a hit in a while. I did the only thing I could think of: I went to see my sister, the now full time doctor. She hugged me, scolded me and then did the test. 

My first thought as my successful, big sister clung to me and cried was of Roger. 

I’d killed him. 

I rode the subway home and thought about a newfound love I had for Collins who had also been recently diagnosed. 

I was trembling when I got home that night. Roger worried and held me and made love to me gently. He stroked my hair and whispered that he loved me. I burst into tears and asked why. 

“Because you’re my April,” he told me. “Because you eat olives off your fingers and your hair glows like strawberry gold in the sun,” he pressed kisses over my face. “Because you smile brighter than everything else in this world. Because you sing like an angel and refuse to eat fish because you think they’re cute.”

I only cried harder.

I tried later that night, after he’d fallen asleep. I made one tiny cut and watched the drops fall into the sink and then started to worry about Maureen and Mark. I tied a cloth around my wrist and went back to bed, pulling Roger’s arms around me. 

Mark took them out the next day to Benny’s wedding, insisting that he was their friend even if he had given up on the life of a starving artist. That and he had promised to film it. They wanted me to go, but I played sick. 

I gave Collins a hug and told him how much I admired him. 

I kissed Maureen and told her she was my favorite diva ever.

I taped a note to Mark’s camera saying I loved him and that he should take care of Roger. 

I left another note for Roger. One that said how much I loved him, how thankful I was for him and that I loved his voice and his spirit and that he had my love forever. I told him that this was for the best. Maybe I could save him from me and the drugs if I were gone.

Writing it hurt too much and I could never say the right thing. I didn’t want to hurt him anymore. I crumpled it up and left him a different note.


End file.
